New Birth from the Newborn King

INTRODUCTION

This is a time of year in which new things are placed on Amazon wishlists.

New things are placed in shopping carts and brought to checkout lines.

New things are wrapped up in pretty paper and placed under the tree.

And tomorrow, many of you will open new things that someone gave you because they thought you needed it or would like it.

Some of these new things may not be needed or liked—but nonetheless—they will communicate love and care.

Well tonight, in the spirit of the season, I want to talk about something NEW.

It is not a new toy or a new tool...

It is not something you can wrap up and place under a tree...

In fact, it is far more important than any physical possession or anything you could put on a wishlist.

Tonight, we will briefly talk about the new birth that we may receive from the newborn King.

CONTEXT AND TEXT

I am going to read to us from a passage found in John 3.

A man named Nicodemus, who is a Pharisee, comes to speak to Jesus by night.

Nicodemus would have been a ruler of the synagogue—a man who was respected and looked to for guidance on how God is to be honored and worshipped.

And yet, in this passage, this powerful man comes to Jesus, needing guidance.

John 3:1–7 ESV

Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’

I have three quick points for us tonight:

1. There is something wrong with our first birth.

2. There is something made right in the second birth.

3. There is something we must bring to be born again.

SOMETHING WRONG WITH THE FIRST BIRTH

Let’s start with that first point tonight:

1. There is something wrong with our first birth.

Look at what Jesus says in v. 3 and in v. 5.

John 3:3 ESV

Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

John 3:5 ESV

Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

From these two verses, we can see that there is clearly something wrong when it comes to our first birth—our natural birth.

If we do not have a second birth, and we only have our first birth, then Jesus says we cannot see the Kingdom of God.

He says again in v. 5 that with only our first birth, we cannot see the Kingdom of God.

The question is—what is wrong?

Well the answer is sin.

We are born from our mother as sinners.

And not just sinners, but sinners who are separated from God.

This is a hard pill for many people to swallow.

This is mostly because they have compared themselves to their neighbors and friends who have done worse things than them and said, “Well—I am sure God forgives me for my little sins because I haven’t done anything crazy like some people have.”

By the standards of society, they are considered pretty good, therefore they conclude, “You know—I am probably pretty good.”

But God created the world. He created us. And He has given us certain laws to live by.

His moral law is summed up in the Ten Commandments.

We are not to have other gods before God.

We are not to worship false idols.

We are not to take the Lord’s name in vain.

We are not to disregard Sabbath rest.

We are not to dishonor our mother and father.

We are not to kill.

We are not to commit adultery.

We are not to steal.

We are not to lie.

We are not to covet.

God will not judge you by whether or not you are a good citizen or whether or not you are morally superior to your neighbor.

God will judge you according to His Law.

So the question is—are we guilty or not?

Well, have we always loved the Lord our God with our heart, soul, mind and strength?

Have we always loved our neighbor as we love ourselves?

The answer—of course—is no.

1 John 1:8 ESV

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

We are all guilty of breaking God’s laws.

And one day, when we stand before God in his courtroom and we answer for how we have lived our lives, we will be declared guilty as lawbreakers.

This is not because God is mean, but because God is just.

Just as you would expect a human judge in a courtroom in the state of Virginia to uphold the Law, God—the eternal Judge—will uphold His Law.

This puts us in a very bad spot with God.

This puts us in a place where we are separated from God because of our sin.

This puts us in a place where we are enemies to God because of our sin.

Isaiah 59:2 ESV

but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.

And this puts us in a place where we are in danger of God’s eternal judgment because of our sin.

Meaning—we aren’t just separated from Him now and enemies with Him now—we are in danger of being separated from Him as His enemy forever.

The picture given by the Scriptures is this:

In God’s hand, He has a cup of wrath like foaming wine.

And He will pour that cup out on all of those who stand opposed to Him as sinful lawbreakers.

Psalm 75:8 ESV

For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup with foaming wine, well mixed, and he pours out from it, and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs.

So this is the problem with our first birth—it leaves us separated from God.

We have inherited a sinful nature from our parents and we have sinned everyday of our lives and we are at odds with a holy God.

Unless something changes, we will not enter God’s Kingdom. We will not see the Kingdom of God.

It’s like if tomorrow, you open up one of these boxes and you put batteries in your kid’s toy and it just doesn’t work.

You would say—this is broken.

Something has gone wrong and this thing is not functioning in the manner that its Maker designed it to.

This is very much a picture of what is wrong with our first birth.

We are broken.

God made us in His image and made us to be in relationship with Him, but due to sin in us and sin in the world, this is not happening.

From birth, the image of God in us has been marred by sin, we are separated from God and due to sin, we are malfunctioning.

SOMETHING MADE RIGHT WITH THE SECOND BIRTH

So with that understood, let’s move to our second point.

2. There is something made right in the second birth.

Jesus mentions the second birth in v. 3. He says, “Unless one is born again...”

And then again in verse 5, He mentions it again with more detail. He tells us that the second birth is one that involves both “water and the Spirit...”

What exactly does this mean?

Well, to understand this, we need to go back into the Old Testament and consider a prophecy uttered by the prophet Ezekiel.

Ezekiel 36:25–27 ESV

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

In this passage, Ezekiel is speaking not long after the collapse of Jerusalem—the very epicenter of Jewish life.

The city had fallen to the Babylonian Empire.

More and more of God’s people were being taken out of their homeland and carried away into Exile.

And all of this was a part of God’s judgment coming upon His people because of their sin.

The future looked bleak.

In the midst of that dark situation, God spoke through the prophet Ezekiel and promised a time in which He would deliver His people from sin.

And He would do this by giving them a new heart and a new spirit.

NEW HEART

What does it mean to have a new heart and a new spirit?

Well, we need a new heart because like we have stated, the old one was malfunctioning.

Sin had shorted it out to the point of death.

Here is how the Bible talks about our spiritual state from birth:

Ephesians 2:1–2 ESV

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—

Our hearts were dead in sin. Our spiritual lives were dead in sin.

From birth, we are like zombies following the course of the world—following the devil himself.

And our hearts being dead in sin, means that our hearts were also dead to God.

Meaning, they could not hear God. They could not talk to God. And they could not please God.

That is the state of our hearts in the first birth.

This means we need a miracle.

If something dead is going to come to life, there must be a miracle.

How can this come about?

The only possible answer is that there must be a change that man himself cannot initiate, a change that cannot take its origin from resources resident in human nature, a change radical and all-pervasive…an all-pervasive moral transformation, changing the whole man in heart, disposition, inclination, desire, motive, interest, ambition and purpose...

John Murray

It is like Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. He goes to bed a greedy, stingy man who has no compassion for others. He gets a visit from three spirits and he wakes up a charitable, loving man who buys the prize turkey for Bob Cratchet’s family.

He goes to bed with a heart black as coal. He wakes up with a new heart that is white as snow.

But the miracle we need is different than the miracle that Scrooge received.

The new spiritual heart we need will not come about through dreams or visits from spirits—it comes about through God’s gracious act of imparting spiritual life to us.

It happens when God regenerates the heart by the power of His Spirit and makes it alive.

It happens when a person believes and then they become a new creation in Christ.

2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

This is the 2nd birth that Jesus is speaking about in John 3. It is the new birth where you receive a new heart.

NEW BIRTH

So how do we go from spiritual death to spiritual life?

How do we go from dead heart to new heart?

Well it all happens by God’s grace—His undeserved love—but we must respond to His grace with faith.

Ephesians 2:8–9 ESV

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

And the faith that you must have is faith in Jesus, the Newborn King.

New birth comes from Him. New birth comes from the Newborn King.

To grasp this, we must take baby Jesus out of the manger.

This is where most people are happy to keep Him.

They get out their nativity set and they have little Jesus there next to some cattle and Mary and Joseph and He is a decoration.

He is a line in their favorite Christmas song.

He is a part of their annual festivities.

But when January comes, they put Jesus back in the attic with Santa and Rudolph.

If we leave Jesus in the manger, we will not be born again.

We have to understand that the baby born in Bethlehem grew up.

He lived a perfect life.

For all the ways we have broken God’s laws, He never broke any of them in thought, speech or action.

And then He died in Jerusalem.

When Jesus died on the Cross, He died in our place. He was our Substitute.

We talked about all of the judgment we deserve for how we have broken God’s laws.

But the Good News of the Gospel is that Jesus has volunteered to receive judgment in our place when He died for our sin. Here is how Isaiah said it, 700 years before Jesus was even born...

Isaiah 53:5–6 ESV

But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

We should have been pierced and crushed and chastised and wounded due to the iniquity we have committed.

Instead, He was pierced, crushed, chastised and wounded so that our transgressions and iniquity could be forgiven.

See, God is a just Judge. He must punish sin.

But in love, He punished His Son instead of us.

The Father elected to give His Son for this.

The Son elected to give Himself for this.

2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

And then, looking to Easter on this Christmas Eve, we rejoice that Christ has risen from the dead.

The Savior who emerged from Mary’s womb, emerged from a rich man’s tomb and His resurrection communicates some things to us.

The Resurrection tells us:

Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf was accepted by God the Father.

Jesus is the Conqueror of the grave, sin and death.

Anyone who places their faith in Christ who died and rose again, will be accepted by the Father and will have victory over sin and death as well.

This eternal freedom will belong to you by faith.

So when we are talking about new birth—the second birth that Jesus is speaking about in John 3—we are talking about turning away from sin and believing in the crucified and resurrected Savior.

This is what born again people do.

They agree with God that their sin is evil.

They turn their back on sin.

They turn to Christ in faith.

And being born again—through Christ—they no longer have dead hearts, but hearts that are spiritually alive.

Being born again—through Christ—they are no longer dead to God, but alive to God.

And being born again—through Christ—they are no longer enemies of God, but forgiven children of God.

NEW SPIRIT

And as if this is not enough, being born again also means that you are given the greatest gift that one could ever imagine.

You are given the Holy Spirit of God to dwell in you.

This is what God meant when He spoke through Ezekiel and said that God’s people would receive a new spirit—His Spirit.

The Holy Spirit dwells in the new heart of every Christian that He has brought to life.

The Holy Spirit’s presence in the hearts of believers serves as a transforming agent: cleansing, protecting, encouraging and assuring.

Derek Thomas

The Holy Spirit is like a seal that God places on your new heart as a Christian, making it clear to everyone that the Lord now owns this person that He has saved.

The Holy Spirit is like a refiner’s fire burning away the sin in us, showing everyone how God’s grace is at work in this person that He has saved.

The Holy Spirit is a Counselor that God places in your heart, giving spiritual insight and wisdom and understanding to the person God has saved.

When Jesus told Nicodemus that you must be born of water and the Spirit—this is what He was talking about.

In the same way that water was used for cleansing in Old Testament worship rituals, God’s people are now cleaned by the blood of Jesus, applied to them by the Holy Spirit in the new birth.

SUMMATION

When you put it all together, here is what you come out with...

Being born again means:

There is a radical transformation in your soul

This transformation is brought about by God

This transformation includes us becoming new creations, no longer dead in our sin

Being born again means:

You have faith in Jesus crucified and resurrected.

On the Cross, we believe in Jesus as our Substitute

In the Resurrection, we believe in Jesus as our Victor

When we repent and believe in Him, we are saved from God’s wrath, forgiven of our sins and given eternal life.

And proof of all this, is that God gives you the gift of His Holy Spirit to dwell in you for all your days on this earth.

This is what the old Christmas carol is speaking of when it says:

Born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth.

Sin had devastated our relationship with God and placed us on a path of destruction.

But all who experience the 2nd birth will find that what was wrong has been made right...

We are reconciled to God and we are destined for eternal life.

SOMETHING WE MUST BRING TO BE BORN AGAIN

The question a lot of people have is—so I turn from sin and I believe in Christ…Got it...

What else do I need to do?

Here is what we read about the three wise men who visited Christ within the first couple years of his life:

Matthew 2:11 ESV

And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.

You may read this and think, “They brought him gold, frankincense and myrrh…Well what do I need to bring Him in order to born again.”

3. There is something we must bring to be born again.

But it isn’t gifts of gold or spice or incense.

It is not good works that you have done to earn His favor—for God is a good Judge and you can’t bribe a good Judge.

It is not a life that you have cleaned up and modified and brought to God...

The thing you must bring to God in order to be born again is simply you. He wants you.

And He wants you as you are.

You won’t stay as you are.

But if you are here tonight and you are separated from God, dead in sin, desperate for a change—then bring your whole self to God.

All of your mistakes.

All of your regrets.

All of your guilt.

All of your shame.

All of your sin.

Bring it all to God and lay it down before Him and say, “You are right. I am wrong. I give you my life. Please save me.”

This is always what the Lord has wanted.

He wants people who trust in Him and follow Him.

That may have not been you when you walked in here tonight, but it can be you as you leave.

If I could do a mental exercise with you tonight...

Imagine that you are standing with a trash bag in your hand. In that bag is every sin you have committed. In that bag is all of your regret and your guilt and your shame.

And I want you to imagine walking up to a Cross stained with blood. And I want you to take your bag of sin and shame and just set it down at the foot of that Cross.

And then just walk away. Agree that what is in that bag is evil and walk away.

And then walk a little further and see an empty tomb.

Understand that this tomb represents victory over death and sin. It represents forgiveness. It represents a thousand 2nd chances with God.

And then, you see Jesus. Mary’s boy. God’s Son.

You see the resurrected Savior who has overcome the Cross and the grave.

Go to Him—with nothing in your hands—and simply say to Him, “I am yours now. You have control. You are the King.”

This is what it looks like to become a Christian.

Before it is about anything else—it is about you coming and surrendering to your life to Jesus Christ.

There may be a million positive effects that come out of that.

There will be hard days that come in your Christian life.

But it all begins with coming to the Savior, bringing Him your whole life and saying, “It is yours, Jesus.”

Psalm 51:16–17 ESV

For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Bring your broken heart to God tonight.

He will not despise it, if you will not withhold it.

He will give it new life.

And through the newborn King, you will be born again.